Visualizing Time-Specific Hurricane Predictions, with Uncertainty, from Storm Path Ensembles

• Published in: Computer graphics forum Vol. 34; no. 3; pp. 371 - 380
• Main Authors: Liu, L., Mirzargar, M., Kirby, R.M., Whitaker, R., House, D. H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.06.2015
• Subjects: Algorithms; Analysis; Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS); Computer graphics; Emergency preparedness; ensembles; Fittings; hurricane prediction; Hurricanes; I.3.3 [Computer Graphics]: Picture/Image Generation-Viewing algorithms; I.3.3 [Computer Graphics]: Picture/Image Generation—Viewing algorithms, information visualization, uncertainty, ensembles, hurricane prediction; information visualization; Predictions; Storms; Studies; Uncertainty; Visualization; Wind speed; USA, Texas, Houston
• ISSN: 0167-7055; 1467-8659
• DOI: 10.1111/cgf.12649

The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) issues advisories every six hours during the life of a hurricane. These advisories describe the current state of the storm, and its predicted path, size, and wind speed over the next five days. However, from these data alone, the question “What is the likelihood that the storm will hit Houston with hurricane strength winds between 12:00 and 14:00 on Saturday?” cannot be directly answered. To address this issue, the NHC has recently begun making an ensemble of potential storm paths available as part of each storm advisory. Since each path is parameterized by time, predicted values such as wind speed associated with the path can be inferred for a specific time period by analyzing the statistics of the ensemble. This paper proposes an approach for generating smooth scalar fields from such a predicted storm path ensemble, allowing the user to examine the predicted state of the storm at any chosen time. As a demonstration task, we show how our approach can be used to support a visualization tool, allowing the user to display predicted storm position – including its uncertainty – at any time in the forecast. In our approach, we estimate the likelihood of hurricane risk for a fixed time at any geospatial location by interpolating simplicial depth values in the path ensemble. Adaptivelysized radial basis functions are used to carry out the interpolation. Finally, geometric fitting is used to produce a simple graphical visualization of this likelihood. We also employ a non‐linear filter, in time, to assure frame‐to‐frame coherency in the visualization as the prediction time is advanced. We explain the underlying algorithm and definitions, and give a number of examples of how our algorithm performs for several different storm predictions, and for two different sources of predicted path ensembles.